Thursday, November 28, 2019

More Boulder Developing is happening at Funk's Island Thanksgiving Weekend!

Funk's Island is in the most convenient spot possible if you are a Portland area climber/ boulderer looking for some winter climbing. Right on the Columbia River on the Oregon side, the low elevation means that it will be unlikely to get snow unless we also get it in town. It also gets full sun on it's southern face, so if the sun is out, you get a little micro climate from the refracted heat off the rock wall.
Three of us local boulder dudes(boulderers not only sounds weird, but it looks weird set in type as well) have been working on flattening fall zones and making the possible a reality this year. We have trundled rock and cleaned a handful of great looking lines, a few are still in the project phase, more await with the simple expedient of cleaning a boulder, or making a fall zone safe. I was out there yesterday for a few hours, developed two more new ones, and the plan is to go out Friday again, so if you'd like to join in, leave a message on our Instagram @pnwboulderingassociation or just meet us out there around 930-10 am. Take I- 84 east to the Cascade Locks exit, go through town, at the stop sign at the end of town, instead of getting back on the freeway, go straight, you will parallel the freeway for maybe a mile and a half, then come to another stop sign at Wyeth Road. Go left under the freeway and boom! there it is.










These climbs are all on the sunny side, the rock is a very interesting volcanic type that appears to also be igneous? It has quartz patterns on some of the exterior faces. Quite different from the rock at nearby Cascade Main.
The northern faces consist of two distinct zones that are split by a road, we have developed a little on both, but much more potential awaits. These next few photos are from the "Riverside"cliff(for lack of a better name for now)


There are probably more photos from this session somewhere, but this is one of the spots we need to return to, in this case with a shovel to remove dirt from the tops of several climbs. Yesterday I also brought the Big Pulaski with me for moving the loose rock to make fall zones better. 
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This next one is from the Division cliff section, Sam has a project on a rad looking arete nearby, and I had been eying up this prow next to it. It will also yield a slab route, a crack climb, possibly another arete, and seeing possibilities for some top rope action as well. If you show up, bring your work gloves, brushes, we got. This is Cygnus, a super fun V3.

  

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